Chrome for OS X: State of the Browser

The open source Google Chromium repository now has an OS X Cocoa shell. We …

Pop by the BuildBot waterfall page and make sure that the source tree is open. If the top of the waterfall says "closed," there may be compiler or test failures after you download the code. Since you won't be prevented from downloading that code, it's best to wait until the tree is open.

One of the great things about the waterfall page is that it really gives you a sense of the progress of the project. "We put everything out and in the open," Gr�nberg told Ars. "You can see it on the tree." This page, which automatically updates, shows enhancements in real time. Point your browser at the (beta) grid view to see even more details about specific fixes.

With an open tree, navigate to your Chromium source directory and sync to the current repository by issuing gclient sync. This may take a while, especially if it's your first time syncing. So be prepared to wait. While you wait, you can stop by the Mac Detailed Status page to see what's new with OS X development progress, or you can hit Pinkerton's blog, which recently has had several updates.

Google pushes out updates fairly frequently, so be aware that things can and do change. Within a day or so of checking out revision 9852, Google was up to 9944. A half hour later, they were up to 9945. And yes, those revisions apply to all versions, not just the OS X one. All base Chrome enhancements are inherited by the OS X build. When you sync to the current build, you receive not only the latest OS X-specific updates but also those cross-platform ones that grow the Chrome project as a whole.

You'll find the Xcode project (all.xcodeproj) in the src/build folder in your Chromium source. To build the project, all you have to do is open it in Xcode and click build. Once again, be prepared to wait. It took many hours to build on a Mac mini and brought the machine repeatedly to its knees.

Looking at Chrome

When looking at Chrome, it's important to keep in mind how early things are in the process. Even several days after Pinkerton published his first OS X pictures, the version available to third parties could not load webpages, and pressing buttons remained more or less a click of death for the program. What you got was a window that could open tabs, and that was about it. The late March build, which I have placed on my personal FTP site as a dmg, does far more, but even so it still shows how early things are in the project.

You can keep track of the latest OS X news by following the Mac Detailed Status page. The Google engineers regularly update this page to show the latest goals and progress for OS X Chrome. In late March, the team was working on the plug-in design document and weighing the challenges of providing Webkit plugins with a sandboxed renderer.

I asked Google about breaking out of the browser to offer stand-alone web applications. They told me that although this is currently on their to-do list and that their design documents specify a stand-alone app mode, that it's simply one of the features that is going to be delayed until they deliver a stable browser on all three target platforms: Windows, Linux, and OS X.

What's next

So when will Chrome OS X debut? "We're working as fast as possible and progressing as fast as we can without compromising security," Karen Gr�nberg told Ars. Although Google will not specify a target date, they assured us that they would be "very surprised" and "very unhappy" if fall came and went without a public beta. In the meantime, Google welcomes contributions to their open source project.

I asked the team if they had any messages to the OS X community as a whole, and they responded with great enthusiasm. "Tell them we're coming! We've got a great Mac app here and we want Mac users to love it!" Gr�nberg reminded me that Google wants to engage the OS X community in their open source effort. You can get involved in a variety of ways:

By stopping by to chat in the #chromium IRC chatroom on irc.freenode.net

The how-to in this post should empower you to keep on top of the latest OS X Chrome developments. You've seen how to set up the source, keep it up to date and, if you have a fast Mac and time to burn, build the application. You've learned about the up-to-the-moment websites that keep track of the development team's status. In the end, you don't have to wait on Chrome. If you have the desire and the curiosity, you can keep on top of the development effort today and get a bird's eye view of progress as it happens in real time.